Time-Flight

"For the new to be born, the old must die."

Writer: Peter Grimwade

Format: Novel

Released: April 1983

Series: Target 74

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan

Synopsis

The Doctor and his companions arrive on Tegan's home planet at a moment of crisis: a Concorde aeroplane has inexplicably vanished while in flight.

The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, together with the TARDIS, join the crew of a second Concorde that sets out to stimulate the fateful journey of the missing supersonic jet...

Coming back to Earth is not the return to normality that the rescue team might reasonably have expected. Seeing is believing, people say. The Doctor and his friends begin to realise that it just isn't as simple as that...

Verdict

Time-Flight was a very good novelisation of the televised serial of the same name! This story doesn't have the best reputation amongst Doctor Who fandom but every time I have watched it, I love it! Reading in prose wasn't quite the same and I think some of its problems are a little more evident, but the way that was potentially tackled by the author in presenting a somewhat streamlined and quicker version of the story both worked for and against it. I absolutely sped through this reading which was strange even for a Target book and whilst that added to the pace and excitement, it didn't leave a lot of room for explanation or depth which certainly could have improved things. That was particularly evident in the first half of the book or so. It was clear that the author chose the initial televised cliffhangers to conclude the correlating chapters which I am a fan of and they work really well here. I was quite amazed by how quickly the Doctor and his companions were thrust into the action with very little time to get over the impactful and emotional death of Adric in Earthshock provided. The lingering effects of that story were good and do like how the gold star is used to convince Tegan and Nyssa that his manifestation is a fake as they aimed to get the core nucleus. I loved the way Kalid was written in the book and it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense that the Master is in disguise as this figure, but for me that's part of the charm and fun. It's so unexpected and I remember being delighted by the reveal when I first watched the story and whilst reading it here didn't quite have the same feel, it was still wonderful. One thing I appreciated more in the prose format was the Xeraphin and their being used to power the Master's TARDIS was really intriguing. I liked how they were running from radiation poisoning from their home world but it had followed them to prehistoric Earth. The concept of a Concorde landing on the terrain of this time period is outrageous but again the uniqueness makes me a fan. I loved the use of perception and Hayter being the only passenger from the initial flight that slipped through the time contour to be unaffected was very good. His belief that he was in Siberia was excellent. Everything that he believed in being contradicted here was very good and I liked how he wanted to know everything and sacrificed himself to the Xeraphin. That entity itself was very good and the idea of an entire species being contained in one protoplasm was quite something! The battle within between good and bad was also very good. The tense deal between the Doctor and the Master was magnificent and I like playing around with different parts of the TARDIS. The way the former got the upper hand and reached Heathrow first was decent, if not perhaps a tad too easy. One thing I did really enjoy though was Tegan recalling the events of Logopolis when the Master materialised his TARDIS as a plane around the initial Concorde. Her dealing with missing home throughout the story was good and I liked how she got to be an air hostess after all. The fact she was worried about her uniform after first arriving was also fun. The way her sudden departure at the end was presented was good and it's amazing to think that she gets left behind without explanation. She thought she was going and that's a big deal as her time with the Doctor hasn't exactly been constant harmony, but instead of staying home she wanted to continue her TARDIS travels. Of course, she will return but it's a powerful way to end. Overall, a great little read!

Rating: 8/10